Thrill and a Drug
by Olive Sunshine
Summary: Set before and during Starship. Taz's adventures in the Robot Wars, her Friendship/Almost relationship with Up and a secret love affair with a young starship captain you may have heard of. Taz/Junior and a tiny bit of Taz/Up.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone! So i'm kind of agreeing with MadHope on this one, but I love Taz/Junior stories and there really are not enough of them so this is mine. I hope you guys review if you like this story because it makes such a possitive difference on my writing, so enjoy! **

Chapter 1

Taz stared out of the porthole shaped window of the ship that was transporting her, Up and the rest of her platoon to Starship 7, one of the largest starships ever built. The town it was stationed at was rumoured to be the target of a fresh attack by the robot army. Reinforcements were called in from everywhere.

Taz was glad that they were going to be staying there for a while. Her first year as a Starship ranger was spent running up and down the country, never getting to places in time to fight, only to protect the wounded. Finally the fight was coming to her.

When they started to decend Taz looked out the window again. Tents, for miles all she could see were tents. First aid tents, Armory Tents, Storage tents. They touched down to the ground and Taz grabbed her small backpack that contained all of her possessions and swung it onto her back. As she stepped out of the craft, Up emerged from the cockpit and greeted her.

"Hey Taz! Did you see it?"

Up pointed up to the sky and as the smoke from the ship cleared she saw it. A monsterous, giant machine in the clouds. The Starship. Starship 7.

The group of thirty made their way through the mini city of tents to the drop pods that would take them up to the ship. Soldiers were carrying large crates of explosives and mines along the dusty path that wound through the middle of the camp. Up leaned down and said quietly into Taz's ear.

"There's a secret mission tonight. A group of soldiers are going out of the boundry wall to bury explosives in the ground to make a mine field."

"Those metal heads won't know what hit them" Taz mumbled back. Taz and Up did their secret handshake which went unnoticed by the other soldiers.

Taz could see the boundery wall in the distance where the robots were supposed to be coming from. No sign yet. All that was beyond the wall was a baron wasteland. At least the ship was more impressive. Taz felt dizzy just looking up at it. Her, Up and twelve other rangers boarded the first drop pod.

As they rose through the air they could see more ships arriving at the camp. At least eight hundred extra troops were supposed to be arriving in the next few days. The drop pod docked with the ship and the rangers were greeted by a bored looking soldier whose face brightened up when he saw Up.

"Commander Up!" he stammered "Doctor Spaceclaw is on the video phone for you. It's such a blast to meet you! I'm private Krayond-" but he was cut off when Up walked strait past him to answer the phone.

Taz made to follow but the soldier put a hand on her shoulder. She turned and aimed a punch at him but he ducked out the way quickly.

"Hey wait! I need you to answer some questions to prove your identification before you go further into the ship." he said, trying not to piss her off more.

Taz looked around. The other rangers where talking to similar people with clipboards.

"Fine" she said simply.

"Name" he asked.

"Taz Cortez" she answered.

"Is Taz Cortez your full name?"

"Yes" she said threateningly.

"I have your full name here" he said, "I'm gonna need you to say it".

"Tazia Marie Estella Cortez " she said quietly.

"Age?"

"19"

"Mother and father's names?"

"Thomas and Marie Cortez"

"I have Thomas and Teressa Cortez" he said, confussed.

"Teressa is my adoptive mother. My birth mother died when I was 15."

"Oh ok well that would be all, go on ahead."

Taz barged past him and headed off to find her assigned room. Up had his own quarters on the ship so Taz would had been assigned a room and a roommate. She was wandering down a long corridor looking for room 214.

"208, 210, 212 aha!" she said, relieved.

Taz opened typed in a code in the panel next to the wall and the door shot open. The room was small with three beds being the first thing in sight. Taz stepped inside the room and caught sight of two girls chatting. They looked up at her. One had short, curley red hair and round glasses and the other was tall and had brown hair tied back in a pony tail.

"Oh, you must be Tazia Cortez" the tall girl said brightly.

"Just Taz" said Taz putting her bag down on the free bed.

"I'm Mort. A science officer on the ship and this is Specs."

The red head walked forward to shake Taz's hand.

"Specs. I'm a technition. Um.. are you THE Taz Cortez? Commander Up's deputy?"

"Yeah" she said, feeling slighty proud.

"No way!" said Mort joining in, sitting on the end of Taz's bed "The youngest female ranger ever to be trained by the galactic league?"

"Yup" said Taz.

"Cool" said Mort casually. Taz laughed at this.

The evening was spent with Specs and Mort asking her all types of questions about Commander Up, being a soldier and how she became a ranger so young. Taz told them of how the robots had attacked her town on the night of her quinceañera, her mother Marie had been killed and they thought they were going to die when the starship rangers arrived and saved them. One of these rangers had been Up, who saved her from the killer robots and agreed to train her when she turned 16. He kept true to his word and she entered the robot wars when she was 18.

In the midst of all the questions Taz got to ask a few about them two.

Sally "Specs" Wilson was 20. It was her first year as a Starship ranger and her father had also been a technition in the robot wars. Mortimer "Mort" Bains was 22 and was a Science Officer on the ship. Her very rich parents had put her into the Galactic league Academy when she was 7 years old. Both her parents also worked in the Galactic league.

Taz lay in her bed thinking that this might not be a bad place to stay for a while. Decent roommates, plenty of robots to kill and a place to call home for at least a little while.


	2. Chapter 2

"Robots!"

"Robots!"

The sleeping rangers were woken by shouting from the corridors. Taz was the first to get up, immediately stepping into her boots and grabbing her red bandana to tie around her head.

"What the hell is going on?!" shouted Mort from under the covers.

Specs struggled to find her glasses and fell out of bed. Finding them she fumbled to find a small contraption that she told Taz was called a "Spectrometer".

"It appears we are under attack" said Specs.

That was all Taz needed to hear. She hit the button to the left of the door and ran out into the chaos in the corridor. She ran along to the stairs and headed down to the main room with the drop pods. She could hear Up very easily over the crowd.

"Would everybody just calm the heck down!" he shouted, "They just took us by surprise thats all. Now lets go!"

"Up!" Taz yelled, catching his attention.

"Taz!" he shouted back.

"What happened?"

"Those robot bastards broke through the boundery wall! Our explosives didn't go off." he explained.

"Get me a Zapper!" Taz yelled.

A crew member jumped out of his skin.

"You heard the woman get her a zapper now" Up told him.

He returned with two huge guns and handed them to Taz and Up. Up smiled at Taz and they stepped into a free drop pod. As the soldiers headed down to the surface of the planet, Taz looked to see what was going on. It was hard to, as it was night and the lights were going out one by one.

"Shit!" said Up, "They're going for the lights"

Taz felt a bit nervous. They would be sitting ducks as soon as they got down there. Robots could see in the dark but they couldn't. The drop pod was nearing the ground. Up looked down at her.

"Stay with me" he said, "None of us will make it if we split up. You hear that men?" he said louder, "We stick together!"

The other soldiers in the pod nodded and cheered. These cheers were muted when the doors to the drop pod opened and a giant claw shot inside. Up jumped to the left. Taz dived to the right and they were lost. Lost in the mayhem of battle. Taz was shooting in all directions. She could hear people yelling orders but she couldn't tell what they were or where they were coming from. Robots were crashing around, stepping on tents and throwing people.

Taz pulled an young soldier on the ground to his feet and continued forward, looking for Up. His last words echoed in her head, "None of us will make it if we split up". Suddenly she was aware that there were no rangers around her. All she could hear was sawing and clanking metal. Shooting a tall sniper robot strait in the head caused a huge explosion. A stream of bullets raced towards her and Taz just managed to duck out of the way behind a boulder.

More robots were advancing and she knew she was in trouble. Taz started to crawl under the wreckage of a truck so they wouldn't see her but too late. A cold metal claw closed around her ankle and pulled her into the air. She shot the robot in the face but was caught by another one. Loosing her grip on the zapper it fell to the ground way below her. The robot's mouth opened and something was shot towards her face. Taz tilted her head away but whatever it was hit her neck. She reached up and pulled it out. It was a dart.

Pain pulsed through her body and she was becoming dizzy. Four robots grabbed her arms and legs. They were going to pull her apart. But they didn't. Taz dimly heard the "pew pew" of a zapper and the robots crashed to the floor. Taz was falling. She was dead, if not from the fall then from whatever was making it's way through her veins. But again she was wrong. Arms. Strong arms caught her.

"Up?" she mumbled.

She saw a pair of blue eyes that didn't belong to Up. She couldn't focus in on the strangers face however as everything was becoming increasingly dark and then... she passed out.

The first thing Taz realised was that she was lying down. As soon as she knew this, she knew she had to get up. The robots. What if they got Up? The one person in her life who she cared about. Her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright. She was blinded by a white light and her head spun. When her eyes came into focus she saw that the white light was a lamp pointed at her face. She angrily pushed it away and saw a young man, definatly early twenties, with light brown hair, blue eyes and wearing a green galactic league jumpsuit. He was leaning against the wall and reading a clipboard. He looked up and smiled.

"Hey Taz. I'm Junior maybe you heard of me. I'm captain of Starship 7." he said.

Taz looked around. She was in one of the hospital tents. Her arm hooked up to some tubes pumping dead-god knows what into her body.

"Taz?" said Junior.

"Permission to return to battle sir" she said quickly. He laughed.

"Permission denied" he said, "You were shot with a poision dart Taz. It will take three hours for the poision to completely drain from your body. Until then you're not allowed to leave this tent."

Taz glared angrily at him but couldn't help but notice how his eyes twinkled when he laughed. She pushed this observation out of her mind when she remembered that he was laughing at her.

"But sir- wait.. Did you call me Taz?" she asked.

"I was told you hated being called by your full name and that you prefer to be called Taz for short."

"Yeah I do but noone really remembers and just calls me Tazia anyway. Thanks".

"No problem but since we're calling each other what we want, please don't call me Sir. I hate being called that. Call me Junior".

"You look very young to be a Starship captain" Taz commented.

"I'm 22" said Junior, "It's kind of the family business so I guess I just fell into it".

"I fell into it too in a way. I was 15 when the robots attacked my town. The Starship rangers showed up and saved us. Well not all of us. My mother was killed by the robots but if it wasn't for the rangers the rest of us would be dead too. Commander Up was one of them and he got me into the academy to train with him".

"So that you can protect people just like they did for you?" he asked.

"And to make sure that what happened to me never happens to anyone again." said Taz firmly.

"Well i'm glad about that". said Junior, "We get alot of people joining up for fun or to take a few shots at the robots and find out that this isn't a game. It's life. I'm glad you have something to fight for".

Taz felt a flutter in her stomach. A flutter. She looked at her feet. "_Taz you don't flutter_!" she thought to herself, "_Pull yourself together Cortez, he's just a man. He may think just like you, be intelligent and attractive but you are NOT going to fall all over the place. You are a Starship Ranger." _

Taz looked back at Junior confidently.

"Where's Up and the rest of my platoon?" she asked.

"They fought they're way to the boundery wall and are holding back the front line." he said carefully, watching her face.

"What?!"

Taz jumped up and attempted to pull the tubes out of her arm. As quick as a flash Junior was wrestling her back onto the hospital bed. Taz fought back and Junior actually had to get ontop of her to hold her down.

"Calm down! I can have you knocked out." he shouted.

"They're at the front line and i'm lying in bed!" she shouted back.

"You're lying in bed heavily poisioned." he corrected, "If you take those tubes out then the poision will continue to spread through your body and kill you in ten minutes flat."

Taz relaxed and Junior climbed of of her.

"I'm getting regular updates. I'll let you know if anything happens".

He left the tent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi again. This is a bit of a short chapter but i've already started Chapter 4 so that should be out reletivly soon. Thanks so much to TotallyAwesome2727 for your lovely reviews! you are.. well..Totally Awesome.**

Taz hadn't sat still for so long in her life. She had taken apart her zapper and reassembled it seven times by the time Junior came back. He looked nervous.

"What happened?" said Taz.

Junior went over to a metal locker next to Taz's bed, opened it and pulled out various battle gear.

"Is Up ok?" asked Taz.

"Yeah" said Junior. He faced her and pulled a bulletproof vest over his head, "Him and the others are on their way back and my platoon are taking over."

"What? You... You're going to the front line?"

He nodded.

"But you are our Captain, you shouldn't have to go"

"I know" he said, "But it's only fair I get to be there too"

Taz got up from the bed and walked as far towards him as the tubes in her arm allowed her to. He got the message and walked up to her. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't hug him, that was like a death sentence. She wanted to tell him he was what all starship captains should be like but she wasn't very good with emotion so she held out her hand for him to shake. He took her hand but didn't shake it. He pulled her closer, kissed her cheek, gave a sly wink and left.

"Hey!" shouted Taz after him, "You come back here idiota!"

Taz stomped back to her bed in anger.

_How dare he kiss me, I don't care if he is going off to a battle he has no right to-_

Taz was cut off in her thoughts by a medic entering the tent.

"Captain asked me to unhook you, you should be fine now"

"Good" said Taz, her anger ebbing away at the thought of getting out of this damn tent.

As soon as she was released Taz ran outside to see that she was right by the drop pods. Trucks were pulling up with wounded soldiers on the back. She saw Up in the back of a truck that was coming up the dirt road towards them. He had a bloody cloth clutched at his head but looked otherwise uninjured.

The truck pulled up and Taz ran towards it.

"Up!" she shouted. He looked up at her.

"Taz?...Taz! I thought you were dead, we lost you so fast." he climbed off of the truck and staggered. Taz pulled his arm over her shoulder.

"Wow you've lost a lot of blood" said Taz, looking at Up's pale face.

"I guess I better get sewn up then" he said casually.

Taz laughed and the medical staff converged on him with a needle and thread.

Later that night Taz opened the door to her room back on the starship. Specs had been called in to help with a "temporary force field project" so only Mort was greeted by the sight of Taz covered in mud, sweaty and sporting a scar on her arm where the tubes had been.

"So um..." said Mort, looking her up and down "Have a good evening?"

PEW!

A few days after the battle Taz was in the zapper training room with Up. They were firing at targets at the end of a long room and the "pew pew" was echoing off the walls.

"So I've been meaning to tell you about a generous invitation we've been offered by Doctor Spaceclaw" said Up sarcastically, Blasting a model robot to pieces with a "Pew!"

"Ooooo really" said Taz in a fake excited voice, hitting the model next to it, making a loud shattering sound.

"A Ball to celebrate the success of the recent battle, Mandatory for all Commanders and Duputy commanders."

Taz gaped at him. They didn't even have a choice.

"Yeah I know." he said grimly, "It's being held back at the galactic league headquarters"

"Any good news?" Taz asked.

"Well, we can bring a guest each" he said. Not really good news then. Who would she take? Specs or Mort. Taz had hated parties since she was 15. For a very good reason.

When Taz got back to her room she was greeted with the news that some deputy commander from another platoon called Krayonder had asked Specs to the ball so Taz asked Mort to be her guest. The two girls seemed quite excited about the event which almost made up for Taz's opposite feelings.


	4. Chapter 4

**A tiny little chapter for you guys. I haven't updated in a while because i'm in the middle of exams and will be for a little while. But i will be writing soon and hope that this little "mini chapter" is enough for now.**

"There is no way in hell i'm wearing that thing" said Taz, staring at the long red dress Mort was holding.

Taz had thought she could get out of the Ball by claiming that she had nothing to wear. That was true. Living on the road for a year had taught her to carry light. But Mort had stepped in and told her that her family were always sending her dresses and shoes to wear to galactic league events. Great.

"Come on you have to wear it. They won't let you in dressed like that." Mort pleaded.

"Fine!" Taz shouted and snatched the red dress and went in the bathroom to change.

Mort smiled at Specs, who was in a silky green dress and looking very uncomfortable about it. That expression had been on Specs' face all evening since Mort announced that she was going to give Taz and Specs makeovers. Taz's reaction had been more violent and Mort suspected she would be more of a challenge.

"Please don't go too overboard" said Specs as Mort combed her hair.

"I know what i'm doing" sang Mort in a high voice.

Just then Taz stepped out of the bathroom reluctantly. The deep red dress fell to her ankles and Taz was quite happy about that. Specs and Mort looked at her.

"It fits! fantastic, Taz you look great." Said Mort who was already dressed in a flowy black dress.

Taz sat down on her bed looking thunderous and watched Mort do Specs' makeup. Mort gestured for Taz to sit down next.

"No." she said simply, "I wore the dress thats all i'm doing"

Another ten minutes of shouting and Taz was in the chair. Mort kept her makeup to an absolute minimum to avoid having her arm broken and combed and brushed and styled Taz's hair as much as she could before Taz started shouting. They put their shoes on and left.

An announcement was made in the corridor that Starship 4, the smallest starship, had docked with the ship to take them to the Galactic league. Specs spotted Krayonder through the crowd and called to him. When he came over Taz recognised him as the soldier who had asked her all those questions when she first boarded the ship.

Up came up behind Taz.

"Wow you look-"

"Shutup!" she hissed, looking at Up in a suit was weird so she could only imagine how weird she looked.

Up laughed as they headed onto Starship 4 and took their seats. Taz caught her reflection in one of the metal doors and gasped.

_"Yep I do look weird" _she thougt to herself.


End file.
